Azeri FM: "President Aliyev agrees to meet his Armenian counterpart"

He said that the Azerbaijani side has accepted this proposal and the rest depends on Yerevan’s position, APA reports.

Commenting on the arrival of diplomats from the OSCE Minsk Group FMs to the region together with the co-chairs, Mammadyarov appraised the raising of the negotiating process to a high format.

"These three countries as permanent members of the UN Security Council support peaceful solution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict," the Minister said.

Mammadyarov called the talks in Baku very effective, "We expressed our stance and the diplomats understood our position very well." He noted that the discussed issues were not new proposals but new opinions and ideas.

"These opinions were uttered in various forms, we can agree or disagree to some of them uttered in the final variant. However, there is a style in diplomacy–you should reach a compromise," Mammadyarov said.

Commenting on the co-chairs' calling "the parties to the conflict should prepare their peoples to peace not to a war", the Minister said that official Baku also supports peace, "However, Azerbaijan's lands are under occupation, we have about a million of refugees and IDPs. These lands should be liberated sooner or later."

While commenting on proposals on holding a referendum in Nagorno Karabakh like in Montenegro, Mammadyarov stressed that the situations are quite different in Azerbaijan and Montenegro.

"Montenegrins and Serbians are living together there. So, our position is that only Armenian community can hold it after Karabakh's status is solved. Returning of Azerbaijanis displaced from there should be provided and they should participate in the process in Nagorno Karabakh. The Referendum can be held in the framework of Azerbaijan's Constitution," the Minister underlined.
Mammadyarov declined to rule out that after achieving a status Nagorno Karabakh will have a Constitution and reminded that Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic has a Constitution too.

"Autonomous republics in Russia have their own Constitutions too," Azerbaijani Minister noted.